Like a Love Story(94)

“Wait, slow down,” I beg him. And then, when he does, I just repeat, “Wow. Wow. Wow.” I must sound like an idiot, but I don’t care. I don’t feel like an idiot. I feel like me.

I pull him back up when I can’t take any more, and I do the same to him. I kiss and lick every inch of skin on his body, tasting the expanse of him, drawing him into me. The moment my lips leave his neck, I miss it already. Then when they leave his chest, I miss that. I want all of him, all at once, all the time.

“I love you,” I whisper, my breath heavy.

“Me too,” he says, laying me on my back and finding his way on top of me.

I turn to the bedside table and grab a condom. I give it to him with a smile and a nod. “Wow,” he says. “Wow, I didn’t think . . .”

“What?” I ask, mischievous. “You thought I’d remain like a virgin forever?”

He beams. A hand on my cheek, he says softly, “Quien es este ni?o? Who’s that boy?”

I realize I’m a new person now, the person I’ve been waiting to be. I feel it’s only right to quote Madonna back to him, so I kiss him once more, then whisper, “I’m a young boy with eyes like the desert that dream of you, my true blue.”

His smile radiates love. “True blue,” he repeats.

He tries to open the condom wrapper but fumbles with it. He tries his teeth. I grab it from him and tear it open. I try to put it on him, doing my best to block out why the condom is necessary, trying to forget all those images of death and disease. My hands shake as I place the condom on him. “I think you’re putting it on upside down,” he says, laughing.

“Really?” I turn it over and try it the other way. It finally slides on.

He smiles. I smile. We have a layer of protection between us now. He squeezes some lube onto him, then onto me. I wrap my legs around him, pulling him closer to me, or deeper into me, because he’s in me now. We thrust and grunt and sweat until we almost fall off the bed.

“I need to catch my breath,” he says. Then, with a smile, he adds, “I think this is the first team sport I like.”

I laugh. “I’m sure your dad would be very proud if you tried out for the varsity sex team.”

This makes him laugh. “Like an athlete,” he jokes. Then he whispers tenderly, “Reza, are you doing this because you want to, or because you think it’ll make me stay?”

I kiss his neck, tasting his salty sweat. I lick the skin behind his earlobe, a hidden piece of him that feels all mine. “Maybe I thought about that,” I say. “But that’s not why I changed my mind. Whether you stay here or go west, I needed to do this. You had to be my first.”

He nods, then shakes his head. “Hey, why are we talking so much? Aren’t we supposed to be having mad, hot, passionate sexual intercourse right now?”

“You started talking!” I laugh.

“Me?” he asks, a roguish grin across his face. “You’re the one inventing new school sports.”

“Shut up,” I say, blushing. “Or I’ll never let you onto the junior varsity blow job team.”

He laughs and kisses me. The heat quickly returns. He enters me again, and it’s like we are flying together, soaring above the world and its problems, and there is no more death or grief or distance.

We collapse into each other when we’re done. After a while, Art gets up and opens the curtains. He’s speaking to me, but I’m still in a haze, floating.

“That was incredible.” And then, sadly, “I wish I could tell Stephen about this.”

I crawl out of bed. It hurts a little to walk, but in a good way, like my body wants to remember him inside me. I walk over to him. I wrap my arms around him, and we gaze out at the city together. We don’t say anything for a very long time. We just stare at the city that brought us together.

The next morning, I put on the most celebratory item of clothing in my closet, the beautiful shirt Judy designed for me. Stephen requested we all wear something fabulous to his memorial. He wanted it to be a celebration of life, not of death. I stare at myself in the mirror. When she first designed this for me, I did not feel worthy of it. Now it feels right. This shirt was designed for someone who loves himself.

There is a knock on the door, which means it’s Abbas. Nobody else in my family knocks. “Come in,” I say.

Abbas enters. He wears a black suit, a white shirt, and a pink tie. “Your mother and sister are both running five minutes late,” he says.

“Because they are getting dressed or because they are arguing?” I ask.

He smiles as he sits on my bed. “A little bit of both.”

He stares ahead at my Madonna posters, records, magazines, all funded by money I stole from him, and suddenly I feel a desire, no, a need, to confess. “Abbas, I . . . there’s something I need to tell you.” He turns his head to me curiously. I take a deep breath. “I stole money from you. More than once. From your pockets when you were in the shower, and . . .”

“I know,” he says, with no trace of anger.

“You do?” My throat feels suddenly dry.

“When you grow up and make your own money, you will always know how much you have in your pockets too,” he says.

“But you didn’t say anything?” I ask, shocked. “Why?”